MARTHA M. McBRAYER graduated cum laude from Yale University in 1985, and in the top-third of her class from Georgetown University Law School in 1988. Following law school, Ms. McBrayer clerked for The Honorable John T. Copenhaver, United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. She subsequently represented corporations in negligence, construction contract and employment discrimination cases as a litigation associate at a large white-shoe defense firm in the Pacific Northwest, where she also tried criminal cases as a Deputy D.A. for the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office.

Ms. McBrayer has represented plaintiffs since 1993 when she began working as an associate in San Francisco for Melvin M. Belli, one of America’s most successful trial lawyers, a founder of the American Trial Lawyers Association known as “The King of Torts.” Ms. McBrayer’s practice for Belli included sexual harassment and sexual assault cases (including molestation cases against a church organization), catastrophic personal injury cases, medical malpractice cases (including wrongful death) and appellate work.

Since moving to New York in 1997, Ms. McBrayer has successfully represented individuals locally and throughout the country in employment-related litigation against some of the world’s largest corporations, including investment banks, Fortune 500 companies, and national broadcasting networks, as well as prominent political, religious, sports and entertainment figures. Her complaint against one such personality was dubbed by legal analysts on the Today Show as “the perfect complaint” and was subsequently used by an American composer as the libretto for an opera. Ms. McBrayer has recovered tens of millions of dollars for victims of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment, and for victims of age, gender, religion and race discrimination. She played a prominent role in winning the largest individual sexual harassment verdict in the United States in 2011 ($95 million).

For over 25 years, Ms. McBrayer has also successfully represented hundreds of personal injury clients in motor vehicle accidents, airplane crashes, slip-and-fall and trip-and-fall accidents, and construction site accidents.

In addition, Ms. McBrayer has organized successful litigations against some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, winning hundreds of millions of dollars for plaintiffs, and millions of dollars in appeals. Ms. McBrayer’s appellate practice has included appeals in the Second, Third, Fifth and Ninth Circuits, as well as in New York’s First and Second Departments. She has practiced in federal courts throughout the country, has been admitted to the New York, California, Oregon and Maryland Bars, and is a member of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and the American Association for Justice.

New York Magazine has named Ms. McBrayer one of New York’s “Best Lawyers.”